Stretching the bounds...

I've taken to watching training videos at lynda.com during lunchtime-- I may be stuck at work, but that doesn't mean I can't learn, right? This one covered how to set different properties of Wacom tablets to get different results in Painter. Here's a quick experiment using the simple pencil tool-- maybe to be revisited with actual Painter color later?

Distance Traveled: 92.26/63,360 (0.14%-- movin' right along!)

Placing bets-- six months or a mile?

Recently read Ian McCaig's Shadowline-- gorgeous work, and a fantastic new perspective on art books. In one section he addresses an imaginary classroom and asserts that anyone can get their drawing skills up to snuff-- "it'll take about six months and a mile of paper", but you can do it. I figure, being the half-scientist that I am, that keeping track of my own progress this way might prove enlightening.

So, I'll be including my 'distance' traveled in future blog posts. For now, another round of sketching-- this time, ladies' hats from Ye Olde Fashion.

Dead things make everything better!

Traveled to Date: 85.5 / 63,360 inches (0.13%-- hoo boy)

Busy Friday..

.. after a frustrating night of sketching and sneezing my head off Thursday, I rolled into work early on Friday and put together the following design in roughly ~45 minutes. After the derby submissions opened my design had the honor of spending a significant chunk of that first day in the 'Fog of War', or top 9 submissions. Since then it's been booted, but by designs well worth the higher ranking. Still, voting remains open until Wednesday at noon--

Vote at:
http://shirt.woot.com/Derby/Entry.aspx?id=49483

The weather outside is frightful..

Only a couple quick, rough sketches for tonight-- dealing with snow and dinner kept me from enjoying some quality sit-down time. However, I'm cheerfully snowed in, and expect that I might enjoy quite a stretch of sketching between work tasks tomorrow.

Watching Baku watch the oncoming blizzard, I was struck with how blue it was outside, and how yellow it was inside, which made me wonder whether I could increase the juxtaposition by bringing the cold colors inside through Baku's coloring. This was a quick study-- clearly I have much more to learn before I can bring such an idea to life the way I want to.

My rough interpretation of a Baku-inspired human. I do love starting with a mid-tone and building up from there, so I may  finish this further.

A matter of scale

It's been years since I've even visualized an entire cohesive scene, let alone tried my hand at one. This is an image that popped into my head  a couple days ago-- we'll see if I can wrestle it into existence. One step at a time-- still a long way to go.

First, some gestures to warm up. I've decided I need to work on more than just full-body gestures, and in particular hands, feet, expressions, musculature and clothes. Since hands are so blasted complicated I gave myself two minutes a pose.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah... Definitely more work.

Then onto the image I have in my head. It'll be really interesting if I can end up with a finished piece (in color, gasp!) in a few week's time.

Patrick already pointed out the ridiculousness of the bard's
pose-- I'm mulling a couple alternates. Don't be surprised
to see this revised in the next round.

Value test-- can I understand what the hell's going on?

Schooled..

Just finished my first design entry for shirt.woot.com's derby-- like most things, I'm discovering this is much harder than it seems. If you feel like voting, you can do so at http://shirt.woot.com/Derby/Entry.aspx?id=49406 .

On a roll..

But, then again, it's easy to be on a roll when it's the first week, right? And I had been hoping to sit down and put some real drawing time in. Instead, mucking about with the blog and fending off cats left me with just enough energy and mental alertness to go a few rounds with the Gesture Drawing Tool , my new best friend. Also trying to determine what openCanvas configuration lends itself best to gesture drawing.

30 second drawings

30 second drawings

1 minute drawings

2 minute drawings

Crappy 5 minute drawing which convinced me it
was time to put down the Wacom before someone got hurt.

In the beginning..

I've hamstrung myself with timidity and fear for too long. I've tried all the things that should have made me happy, that would have made anyone else happy-- time to move forward and try my hand at the things that will make me happy.

And so... scribblings, though I won't let myself stay in the kiddie pool for too long.

Sketch and color practice-- rough rough rough!

A wingless dragon for a warmup.

A selkie maiden-- perhaps good enough for the next round of color practice. 

And the beginning of a series of pictures?

As crushing as it might be to try and fail, it's nowhere near the tragedy it would be to never try at all... right?